Desperation move pays off for Flyers

PHILADELPHIA --- Peter Laviolette made a goaltending decision Sunday, made it early, made it firm. It was Ilya Bryzgalov, one day after a loss in Boston, three days after a ridiculous loss at home to Pittsburgh.

It’s what happens when a team is desperate, a coach is desperate and an opportunity, even a slight one, arises. The decisions are simple.

“I just think that coming off last night, Bryz is the guy who needs to be in there,” Laviolette was saying before the Flyers’ 3-2 victory over the Buffalo Sabres. “We need to get a win tonight. Our team needs to dig out of this.”

There are other ways to concede that win-or-else straits have arrived. But that one worked. The Flyers had lost their last three and four of their last six, and they had less than half a season still to play. To that, there was nothing radical in their coach’s hint of urgency. It was rather obvious, yet telling.

The Flyers were --- and until further notice, will be assumed to be --- playing for more than the organization’s eternal Stanley Cup fantasies. They were playing to save a nucleus, a system, a front office structure, a head coach and their very dignity.

“It doesn’t take much to understand what’s going on,” Simon Gagne said. “You look at the standings. I think everyone came into the locker room today and looked at where we are at and how many games we have left. I’m not good in math, but if you look at it, we have to win games right now. And this game tonight was a must-win against a team that has struggled.”

Gagne scored early, and the Sabres couldn’t score enough to flip the math late. But had the Flyers wasted a lead like they did the last time they were in the building, who knows how busy the Wells Fargo Center press-conference room would have been by Monday morning?

“This is the time of year that teams are noticing the standings and looking at the games,” said Max Talbot, whose shorthanded goal gave the Flyers a 2-0 lead. “They are all must-win games for us and Buffalo is in the same situation.”

If the Flyers are to make a standings move, it will be now. They generated the first nine shots Sunday, were physical, fast and never trailed. Next will be a Devils home-and-home, starting in Jersey, a critical in-division opportunity. Then they will hit Tampa Bay, where the Lightning is the second-worst team in the Southeast Division. A surge through that stretch would drive the Flyers into Pittsburgh, where they would arrive with a blast of revenge. That would precede five consecutive home games, cascading into the April 3 trade deadline.

So they must take advantage of some opportunities now and peak in time for that homestand … or spend that deadline with their fingers on the “ignore” button of their cellphones, aware that any phone call likely will convey unfortunate career news.

“We still have some things to improve,” Gagne said. “But this was a good start. Now, we can focus on Jersey. It’s a big two games --- maybe the two biggest games of the season for us. Then, after that, there could be a big difference of where we are in the standings.”

The Flyers do not customarily fold at the deadline. But if during that end-of-the-month homestand they are booed as they had been lately, the changes will be loud. The initial indication is that they remain convinced they can win this year, for since the start of the season they have acquired 73 years worth of veterans in Mike Knuble, 40, and 33-year-old Gagne. And while those moves did not filet the farm system or the future, they hardly squealed of a youth movement. Until that deadline, though, the Flyers will be haunted by the standard buy-or-sell decisions.

Sunday, it was Laviolette’s decision to stick with Bryzgalov. For that, he was rewarded with quality goaltending and the end of losing streak. But it wasn’t that he made the choice that mattered. It was why. And that’s because he was desperate --- desperate, already.